Read all previous chapters here.
NECRONOMICON
There’s a resident goth in my town, and I know what you’re going to say, but it’s not me.
Her name is Lucille Izzard. She wears spiked collars and black lipstick. Ginger roots spider out from the parting of her liquorice dyed hair sheets.
One time, the first and only time, that I dyed my hair I decided to go from my mid muddy brown to a brilliant gleaming platinum blonde. What no-one tells you is that the box dyes you get in the supermarkets don’t have enough peroxide in them to do the job properly. Two anxiously laborious box dyes later, and in serious risk of losing all my hair, I’d managed to achieve a nicely eye-catching shade I would hesitate to call ‘neon banana’ simply because it’d be an insult to bananas. Ipso facto, Lucille Izzard must spend a fortune on liquorice black box dye, and I’m genuinely in admiration at anyone with that much commitment.
‘Izzard as in Eddie?’ I once asked her. Then I launched into a word-perfect skit just as her fingers did a rapid tap-tap-google on her phone to find out who the hell Eddie Izzard was. She seemed displeased with the results. She sneered at me and walked off right when in the middle of my superb rendition of “penne al’arrabiata from the Death Star Canteen”. I don’t think she got that I was trying to pay her a compliment. I don’t do Eddie for just anyone.
Anyway, my point is that, growing up, I was nothing like Izzard. I was into aggressively bright colours, sunshine, and plastic charms shaped like cherries. My primary school notebooks were covered in my little pony stickers. Black clothes don’t even suit my skin tone, they wash me out. Yet somehow I’m the one unwillingly living the goth life.
Let me show you what I mean.
Underneath my bed is a floorboard possessed of a pleasingly loose set of nails. These nails are loose due to some past negotiation with the business end of a tool or two. Out comes the mini screwdriver I keep in my desk drawer. Up comes the board. And in the dark, cool space underneath, now clean of the dust from a thousand tiny insect carcasses, sits a notebook. It’s wrapped in an old Hammer Horror t-shirt, as if the screen printed power of Twins of Evil could keep its contents harmlessly contained.
The notebook is filled with my brother’s cramped, crabby handwriting. To the casual observer, indecipherable. But to the little sister who has spent years sneaking peeks into his diaries whenever he was out of the house and forgot to lock his bedroom door? Pie levels of easy.
The theme of his writing is a meandering exploration of demonology. Witchcraft. A general theme of the black arts. Maybe you already guessed that, but it was a shock to me when I first found the notebook in the days after his death. Despite all his crazed talk of demons, I’d had no idea just how far down the rabbit hole he’d gone.
In the notebook I came across a scribbled “recipe” for a banishing ritual, a way to rid yourself of anything that may be haunting you. And yesterday in the woods, armed with a black candle and a boatload of desperation, I tried it out.
I’m not so far gone that I believe it might actually work, but hope is a bitch.
As I’m sitting on my bed flicking through the notebook, idly wondering if there’s anything in here about conjuring up the phone numbers of girls that look a bit like Scarlett Johansson, I hear the sound of my bedroom door knob rattling.
Before there’s even time for a proper freak-out to blossom, the door opens wide to reveal my mother.
*
Now imagine that the shot of her freezes. The whole thing turns sepia, a colour change to signify a shift from current reality.
This is how, less than a year ago, the next scene would have played out:
‘I’m interrupting Judy Blume time, aren’t I,’ my mother would say.
According to the commandment of Snoop Dogg I’d drop the notebook like it’s hot and give my mother my very best accusatory tone.
‘Don’t you knock any more? I could have been hosting a sex party in here.’
My mother would lean against the doorframe. ‘Well, judging by the lack of noise, I assumed it to be a very boring one, and therefore concluded that my sudden presence might at least serve to enliven proceedings.’
(And now you’d know where I get it from.)
My mother’s voice would lower. Her mouth would tighten into a ready grimace. ‘I have a confession. I’ve known about the hidey hole since you were six.’ Her eyes slide in brief guilt to the loose floorboard under my bed.
I would fake gasp. ‘I keep my porn in there!’
‘Well, you used to keep mouldering caramac bars and packets of contraband sherbet, if memory serves.’
‘Lies,’ I would accuse. ‘They had far too much sugar in them to ever go mouldy. Anyway, when puberty hit I began to chase harder drugs. Romance novels. Nu-metal. The dragon.’
‘Well, admittedly once you hit sixteen, I got too scared to keep looking.’
‘Thank god. No-one should ever have to picture their own daughter in a bright red gimp mask.’
My mother would groan. ‘Enough! You win this round.’
And she’d follow it up with a full-throated laugh.
*
Out of imaginings and back to reality - signalled by the transformation of sepia tones to cold, flat light - my mother makes no jokes. She just watches me, her eyes red.
These days, her eyes are always red.
‘What are you doing?’ she asks. ‘What’s that?’
The notebook is still clutched in my hand. Too slow, Snoop Dogg admonishes me.
I say nothing, which, as you may be coming to realise, is really unlike me.
‘Alec,’ my mother says, stepping into the room. ‘Is that his notebook?’
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the lady can recognise a ubiquitous pound shop notebook with generic cover at ten paces. I put it to you to consider that she has seen it before - maybe even read it herself. (Jury gasps.)
‘Well, you always lauded me for my curiosity,’ I reply at last, testing the waters, but she doesn’t take up the joke baton - she hasn’t for six months - and I feel an incredibly unfair yet unstoppable tidal wave of resentment.
‘Alec,’ she says wearily, ‘you shouldn’t have that.’
‘You threw out the rest of his books,’ I protest.
She hesitates. ‘Not all of them.’
‘No, not all of them because, see, I have this one. I obviously sanction you getting rid of his collection of Dan Browns for reasons of good taste alone, but surely they weren’t all blasphemous.’
‘Why did you keep the notebook?’ she asks me, skilfully avoiding the question.
‘His bedroom door’s locked. It’s been locked since he died,’ I reply, skilfully avoiding the question. ‘You won’t let me near any of his stuff.’
Have you noticed that we don’t say his name? I don’t even know when that started, but the one time I uttered “Lucas” out loud I saw my mother physically wince. So I stopped uttering it out loud.
‘It’s just too soon,’ she says to me.
‘You haven’t gone full shrine in there, have you? Don’t leave the burning candles around his Head Boy high school photo unattended, the fire department spent a lot of money on advertising telling us not to do that. Don’t let their money be spent in vain.’
‘Alec, stop! Just… stop.’
I stare at her. She’s breathing hard. I’ve gone too far, somehow I’ve gone too far, but all I’ve done is try to make it like it was, try and evoke those old wisecracking days.
She used to love this about me. Black humour is - was - our family’s preferred communications device, the way we would overcome the random and careless brutality of an indifferent universe. Lucas had been the best at it - he had a prodigious memory for quotes and lyrics, and could conjure whole skits from shows he’d seen but once, weaving them effortlessly into casual conversation. Catholicism and competitive wit are - were - the twin pillars of our family life.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say, at a total loss.
It’s as though who I am offends her now, but I have no idea how not to be me.
She must regret her outburst, because she comes to sit beside me on my bed, and when she speaks again, her voice is gentle with remorse.
‘Why are you reading this? Is it because you want to understand what he was going through?’
‘It started out that way,’ I cagily reply, ‘but now… I don’t know. I feel like something bigger than him is going on.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Have you heard of a kid called Justin Gorhammer?’
She pauses, then asks: ‘Is he a friend of yours?’
‘Not exactly.’
She listens carefully to my increasingly excitable recitation of recent events, and then watches Justin’s video all the way through to the end. This, us sitting together, both focused on the same thing that for once is not He Who Shall Not Be Named, has me chasing hope like a kitten chasing a string.
Maybe we can solve this thing together, play detective. Maybe this will be the thing that breaks us out of this grey torpid purgatory that passes for life these days. She’s a lawyer - okay, she works in small claims court, where the good renumeration isn’t - but she has contacts, she knows people. I bet she can get the skinny, pull some favours, shake some lowlifes. I bet we both could. Landry & Landry, PI Agency etched in gold-plate on the door of our imaginary possible office…
‘Give me the notebook,’ she says at last, holding her hand out, and I readily hand it over.
She opens it up to the page I was reading. Two sets of eyes fall on the scribbles there - a detailed recipe for a little something called “Conjuring a Tulpa to Drive an Enemy Mad” - and then she snaps it shut.
‘Oh honey,’ she says. ‘This is why I don’t want you reading his books. It messes with your head.’ She pulls in a shaky breath. ‘You’ve been drawn to darkness recently, Alec, and while it’s understandable, this is not the right outlet for that famous curiosity of yours. You need to focus on something healthier. Something less dangerous.’
I can’t help it. I laugh. I catch a look for it, but come on. These days every fashionista worth her moonlight-infused salt has an altar scattered with amethysts and burns a sage bundle every time they post an instagram video and is really, really into silver jewellery shaped like crescent moons. An interest in the alt religions is hardly the symptom of chicken-head biting weirdoes it once was. The era of the Satanic Panic, like the femme fatale and low-rise jeans, is one long gone.
But in my very catholic family? We might indulge in the black humour, but we don’t mess with the black arts. "Darkness attracts darkness”, my father was fond of saying before he skedaddled out of the family unit eight years ago, but it seems like Lucas wasn’t listening - or maybe things got so dark for him near the end that adding in a little more darkness felt like no big deal.
Still, I try. ‘Mum - it’s harmless.’
‘Harmless,’ she echoes. ‘He’s dead. He’s dead because of it. Does that sound harmless to you?’
My mouth opens and shuts like a surprised fish.
She shuts the notebook, holding it tight against her lap.
‘I know it’s hard,’ she says, ‘maybe the hardest thing you’ve ever done, but you have to get yourself back towards the light.’
‘I don’t even know what that means,’ I helplessly reply.
‘It means no more parties, and no more going off to god knows where whenever you feel like it - ’
‘I haven’t been to a party in three months - ’
‘Yes, and what happened at the last one you went to? You got drunk and you crashed your car into a tree - ’
‘I keep telling you, I was not drunk! I hadn’t touched anything, I went to rescue Deena because she - ’
‘She’s your best friend. Don’t shut her out, you need her right now.’
‘I’m not shutting her out - ’
‘Alec, listen to me. Just listen. It’s just you and me now. We didn’t choose this, but that’s life.’ The way she says this, blunt and bitter, breaks my heart and makes me furious at the same time. ‘But you have a future. You deferred university this year, and I accepted that, but you’re going next year. You’re going, and you’ll work this summer, get some money together. Who’s that caterer you pulled shifts for in high school? I want you to call her, get as much work as you can, keep yourself busy and focused, focused on your goals. And no more parties. No “impromptu hangs” or social time with anyone other than Deena - ’ her voice has risen, my god she’s gathering steam, really getting a roll going - ‘you work, and when you're not working you stay here at home, and you start on your university applications.’
‘Well, what if,’ I posit, ‘while I’m filling in all these forms, my pen breaks or runs out of ink, and we don’t have any more pens in the house, not a single one? Am I allowed to leave the house to make a quick run to Staples?’
‘The applications are all online.’
‘What if there’s a power cut? Or -’
‘Alec, I have to be able to trust you,’ she interrupts me, ‘I can’t be around twenty four seven to make sure that you don’t do anything… that you’re okay. Because I have to work too, remember?’
How could I forget? She lives at the office these days, because it sure as shit beats living here.
‘No-one’s asking you to play prison guard,’ I mutter.
She doesn’t seem to hear me. Her faraway gaze is fixed on the opposite wall. Even when she’s lecturing me, she’s barely here. She’s always somewhere else, these days, somewhere I can’t reach and I’m not allowed to go.
‘You’re going back towards the light,’ she tells the wall. ‘Whatever it takes.’
While you stay alone in the dark? I ask her silently. That’s not fair. I'm alone too! I need you!
But I can’t need her. She’s already had one kid go mad and die on her, and the last thing she needs is any evidence that the other is keenly gallivanting along the same path. I could wail and gnash my teeth over the injustice of it all, but what would be the point in torturing her more?
So I nod like I mean it. I promise to call up my old boss for catering shifts. I say all the things to make that manic panic light in her eyes dim with relief. And when she leaves my room with my brother’s notebook clutched tightly in her hand, presumably to burn it, I don’t utter a word of protest.
I’m on my own in this.
Watching Lucas gradually deteriorate was torture for both of us. Watching all his sunny, beaming zest for life leach away to be replaced by the soul-sucking paranoia, the constant lying, the sneaking off in the middle of the night to do god only knew what, the lying in bed staring up at the ceiling and not moving for hours, the anger, the sadness.
And the scariest thing of all, the dread. The fear. The day when he swore a demon was following him, dogging him, hounding him, punishing him. A demon no-one else could see. Madness up close is never as funny as you think it’s going to be.
He used to tell me everything. Then he started keeping secrets. Then he lost his mind. I’ve since come to really resent it any time I feel like a secret is being kept from me, and that notebook could have given me an insight into his biggest, namely: why a demon, of all things?
I’d passed it off as a random part of his madness - until Justin. It has to mean something. It can’t be that two entirely unconnected boys of the same age, in the same town, randomly suffer the same specific delusion.
And what about what I saw, the night I wrapped my car around a tree?
The slight stumbling block on my quest for answers: there’s only one key to Lucas’ room, and my mother keeps it in her purse, which these days remains on her person at all times. I’m never going to see that notebook again.
Good job I already took photos of the more interesting pages.
ARACHNOPHOBIA
Thomas Geist (‘Tommy Boy’, ‘Tommo’, ‘T-Guy’, or ‘Ghostie’ to the nearest and dearest mix of friends he’s picked up over the years via his two main loves, football and musical theatre) has his Start o’ The Summer birthday beach party every year, without fail, on or around July 1st.
I know this because I’ve been to every single one of them since I was nine. We attended the same Catholic primary school, and he used to invite the whole class every year. The nuns all liked Ghostie (well - all of them except Sister Mary Katherine, our maths teacher, but she didn’t like any of us on the basic principle that we were a) alive and b) under forty five years of age), and the fact that Ghostie was a nun favourite should have automatically made him about as palatable to me as watching a Woody Allen film - but, well, Ghostie is easy to like. He doesn’t care who comes to his party as long as everyone has a good time. The fact that he holds it on the beach a hundred feet from his house also means anyone can show, so who cares about exclusivity? It’s low-bar for entry, making it attractive to a myriad cross-section of social groups, and on a warm summer evening it’s about the nicest way to see the sun go down you can get.
Which means it’s also my best shot at finding someone who knows someone who knows Justin Gorhammer. And if I’m lucky, maybe they’ll have insight into this whole demon thing.
Tommy Geist’s parents knew what they were doing when they scored their place. The beach here edges a small, gorgeous cove, with plenty of atmosphere to go alongside. At one end, naturally drilled into the dark mass of the cliffs, is a series of dank, dark tunnels so small even I have to duck my head to walk inside them. The walls are forbiddingly jagged and covered in slippery moss, and even in broad daylight the light hardly penetrates. At night the tunnel warren is completely black, and you need a flashlight just to take a step without falling on your face.
Naturally, it’s one of the most famed hook-up spots in fifty miles.
I’ve had to come to Ghostie’s beach bash earlier than I’d like, since mum is due back from work at nine pm. Her potential fainting fit upon discovering my lack of home presence will only be worth it if I actually find out something useful, so I’ve put my best game face on, and armed with a confidence so sure it can only be faked, bulldozed my way into a dozen conversations with strangers. I’ve been doing this for about an hour, and with zero success, when I finally spot a face I know, and out of sheer relief I make a hasty beeline for her.
‘Hey, Mallory!’ I call.
I haven’t seen her for months, but then again I haven’t seen anyone for months. Deena’s newish friend - she of “pool parties with the delightful Jamie” fame - stands tall and elegant, etched against the bonfire flames in an outfit more New York fashion house CEO in-waiting than beach party attendee.
I, in contrast, have more than a resemblance to a 1920s Oklahoma gas station attendant (it’s the overalls, and I have yet to accept that the only people who can make overalls work are the kind of people who’d look good draped in a fire blanket.)
‘Mallory! Hi? Hello?’
I’d swear we just locked eyes, but she’s turning her head away. My voice is getting louder and more embarrassing, but when in doubt, double down. That’s the cool thing to do, right?
‘Mallory, hey! Excuse me.’ I elbow my way directly in front of her.
She hesitates.
If hesitations could talk, they would say ‘I already saw you, and wanted to ignore you, but your persistence has placed me in the awkward position of not wanting to lie to your face with false body language about having already seen you (admirable) while simultaneously not wanting to see you now and be forced to have a conversation (less admirable). This momentary indecision has cost me my higher ground. O, unhappy day.’
‘What’s up, Alec?’ she says to me.
‘Not much,’ I brightly reply, and then, too casually: ‘You here with Deena?’
Confession: there’s a tiny, minuscule chance that I was hoping to run into Deena tonight. For one, the New House Rules specifically state that I’m allowed to hang out with her, so if mum does catch me out, I can at least say I came here because I was trying to see Deena, so it’s not all the way a lie.
Mallory gives me an odd look I can’t interpret. ‘Deena didn’t feel up to it tonight.’
‘Oh.’ I make a face. ‘She could have just told me that when I texted her earlier.’
Deena, like me, hasn’t missed Ghostie’s shindig in eight years. I just assumed she’d be here, and that she’d just been too busy to reply to me.
‘Well, it doesn’t matter,’ I say in a too casual tone, indicating that it does, indeed, matter. ‘It’s you I wanted to talk to, anyway.’
Mallory’s eyebrows do the dance of surprise. ‘Me?’
‘Don’t look so worried, I'm not on the hunt for a bone marrow match.’ I give her a reassuring smile. ‘I just wanted to ask if you knew this guy Justin Gorhammer? I think he lives near you.’
‘I thought you guys weren't talking,’ she says, in the sort of tone that suggests I’m breaching some mystifying etiquette.
‘Me and Justin?’
‘You and Deena.’
‘What?’ To paraphrase Fight Club, I am Jack’s genuine astonishment. ‘Who said that?’
‘Look,’ Mallory hedges. ‘I’m just looking out for Deena. And I know you’ve had it really rough recently.’
‘So?’
‘So I’m not taking sides.’
‘Taking sides on what? Climate change? Coke or diet coke? Kramer versus Kramer?’
Mallory hesitates.
‘Mallory… is something going on?’ I ask. ‘Why isn’t Deena here tonight?’
‘You guys should talk about it,’ she stubbornly insists.
‘Did we have an argument?’ I persist. ‘If we did, this is the first I’m hearing about it.’
‘Talk to her - ’
‘Well I can’t do that, can I, if she won’t answer my texts,’ I shoot back, frustration wrapping itself around my chest like a boa constrictor and giving my ribs a good squeeze.
Mallory’s hands are up like twin wards, as if I’m shooting lasers at her. My heartbeat feels fluttery, like I’m about to have a panic attack. Not a good look, how am I going to get any answers like this?
‘Are you okay?’ Mallory asks.
‘I’m fine!’ I snap. It’s a bare-faced lie, and an obvious one. ‘Sheesh, your brother dies and suddenly it’s like you have leprosy.’
‘Maybe she thinks you need more time to recover - ’
‘Recover? What recover? I really wish people would stop treating me like I lemminged off the cliffs of sanity! I’m completely fine!’
‘Fine people don't crash their car and nearly kill their best friend because they saw their dead brother in the middle of the road, Alec!’ Mallory shouts.
The chatter in our immediate vicinity goes church levels of quiet.
I take a quick glance around. Stares. Whispers in ears.
‘Look, I’m sorry,’ I hear Mallory say. ‘I know the official story that you guys told everyone else afterwards. That it was a fox that ran out into the middle of the road. But Deena told me what you said to her in the car at the time. What you really saw. It scared her, Alec, okay? She thought you were having some kind of psychotic breakdown.’
‘Awesome,’ I brightly reply. ‘I’m so glad she shared that with you, and then you shared it with me. Let’s share it with everyone! Sharing is caring!’
‘Look, she told me in confidence,’ Mallory says reassuringly, ‘No one else knows, I promise.’
‘No one else knows?’ I say through my most brittle smile. ‘When you just announced it to the Atlantic Ocean?’
She catches the teeth in my words. I watch her finally - far too late - clock our avid nearby audience. It’ll be all over town by morning.
And if it somehow gets back to my mother…
‘Well, Mall,’ I say, ‘it was super seeing you! Cheers for the pep talk!’
Mallory’s mouth falls open, but whatever is about to drop out of it - more apologies, or more bombs - I don’t want to hear it. I need to get out of here. I need -
- to turn and walk straight into someone else, spilling their drink all over both them and me and upping my humiliation quotient by a factor of at least one hundred.
Oh, good god and a fist shake to an indifferent universe, it’s the jumpy girl from the woods. Bambi Scarlett - aka Megan Lugner, aka Pretty College Girl Who Thought I Was A Lunatic - is standing right in front of me, her delicate peach-coloured top soaked in beach party concoction, her eyes wide as if her lunatic suspicions have just been confirmed.
Which, of course, they have.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I say, aghast.
Wet Megan gathers herself. ‘That’s okay.’
‘No, it’s not. Let me help you, here, I’ll clean you up - ’
Am I seriously trying to wipe off her chest with my sleeve right now, you ask yourself? And my reply is yes, yes I am, and this is what happens when you watch too many romantic comedies. Somehow no-one mentions that every character in those things is at best problematic, often teetering on the edge of sanity themselves…
Megan’s hand covers my own. It is warm and dry, unlike the rest of her.
‘Stop,’ she says kindly.
I stop.
And then she says: ‘Let’s go somewhere more private.’
Her hand does not come off mine. It fastens itself around my fingers, tugging them along with it. Megan leads me away through the gawkers and the gawpers, across the beach, plunging us into the cold air beyond the firelight’s reach.
I say nothing all this time. It’s for the best.
We tramp silently across the sand, the party music fading, the sound of the waves swelling. When we near the tunnels at the end of the beach Megan stops, lets go of my hand, and peers at me through the bosky dusk.
‘How are you doing there?’ she asks.
I give her a weak smile. ‘Believe it or not, that wasn’t my Worst Party Moment Ever.’
‘Gosh. I’m impressed.’
‘Wait ’til you hear about the worst one. Then you’ll be running.’
Megan laughs. ‘I don’t scare that easily.’
I’m staring at her, I know it, but I can’t help it.
‘I don’t know,’ I hedge, ‘I suspect you’re secretly thinking about beating the speed record of your previous exit from Situation Alec.’
‘Sorry about that,’ she says, surprising me even further. ‘Not cool of me. I just got a little weirded out.’
‘No doubt, no doubt. Well, thanks for not running this time.’ I restrain myself from glancing at her chest. ‘And for being such a good sport about me ruining your top.’
‘It was an accident. Besides, it seemed like you were in kind of an emotional situation with your friend, there. I’m glad I could offer an exit scene.’
‘And what an exit scene,’ I reply, but it’s not my finest return serve. Now I’m too busy caught up in my rather revelatory conversation with Mallory. Apparently Deena and I are in a fight, and I’m the only one in the world who didn’t know about it.
‘Friend fallouts are worse than romantic ones,’ Megan says softly, apparently reading my mind. ‘So much more of a betrayal.’
I shrug. ‘Because they know all your darkest secrets.’
Megan nods. ‘And they’ll use them against you.’
‘M.A.D.’
She looks quizzical, so I go on: ‘Mutually Assured Destruction. I’ve got dirt on her, too. We’d never detonate, or both sides blow up.’
‘Seems like she’s already started lobbing grenades,’ Megan comments, nodding back towards the firelight. ‘Betrayal, like I said.’
Her expression is deadly serious. Apparently an ex friend really did a number on this girl.
‘Oh,’ I say as revelation hits. ‘So that’s who your stalker was.’
‘My… what?’
‘Your stalker. The other day in the woods. The figure in giant, face obscuring sunglasses and a cap, watching us. Your scary ex-bestie, circling her prey with grenades at the ready.’ I search Megan’s face. ‘I’m kidding. It was a joke. A bad one. Terrible. I should be fined, arrested, drawn and quartered.’
In the silence that follows, I can hear the gentle roll and pull of the ocean, and ever so faintly, the sound of voices in the tunnels behind us. Apparently it’s never too early to get jiggy. If the voices start doing erotic moans, we’re going to have to find another conversation spot.
‘Do you…’ Megan hesitates. ‘Do you want to get out of here, maybe? Go get a drink or something?’
Her eyes are on me. By Jove, I think she’s serious. With me. A drink. Me. Her. Just the two of us.
I ready an embarrassingly emphatic reply. A shriek interrupts me. At first I think it’s a seagull - those rats of the sky - but when it comes again, it has a strange echo to it, a chillingly distorted sound.
‘What is that?’ Megan has the slow voice of someone trying to ignore their hind brain. ‘Is that a bird?’
‘Nope,’ I reply, ‘that’s a human.’
Another piercing scream. I know what pure fear sounds like.
‘Wait here just a second, okay?’ I tell Megan.
And then I turn and hotfoot it to the tunnels.
My legs pump. Sand sprays under my feet. Later there will be time to ask myself why I’m like this. Right now I can hear fear, and panic, and I’m the closest, and that’s all that matters.
As I close in on the nearest tunnel entrance I fumble out my phone to use it as a flashlight - then it thunks into the sand as a figure bursts from the cave and collides with me.
Slim and lanky in an oversized hoodie. Baseball cap hiding their hair. A snatch of one pale-ringed eye before a gloved hand comes up and slams sunglasses back into place - who the hell wears sunglasses in a pitch black tunnel? - and then the figure is off, sprinting away from me, away from a stock-still Megan in the distance, sneakers pounding sand, until they’re lost in the dunes beyond.
Another shriek dribbles from the tunnel, snatching me back to business. The sound is weaker, hoarse, losing its strength. Baseball Cap wasn’t the screamer, then - but why did they run?
What the hell is in that tunnel?
No more time wasting. The flashlight goes on and I plunge into the darkness beyond.
Eyes won’t adjust fast enough. I stumble along.
‘Hello?’ I call out. ‘Hello! I’m coming, tell me where you are!’
Silence.
Shit, shit shit.
Shit, what if it’s a serial killer?
Shit, I tell myself again as I shuffle forwards, only now does it dawn on me that I don’t know this tunnel system at all. I’ve only been here once when I was fourteen, lured by an inexpertly lusty Jason Pengrove, and I don’t remember how we got in and out -
Relief plus a heart-bursting surge of fear pulls me up short as my phone light picks out the body on the ground. But his eyes are open, thank god, he’s alive and he’s moving. He has his back against the wall, his arms held up in front of his face as if to guard his gaze.
That end scene in the Blair Witch Project chooses at this most unhelpful of moments to flash through my brain - thank you, brain! - and I go against every instinct I have. I move forward and crouch down next to him.
‘Hey,’ I say. ‘What happened?’
He whimpers. He hasn’t even turned around to look at me. His gaze is trained on the far wall. Filled with dread, compelled by that damned curiosity of mine, I turn my phone light to the area he’s staring at.
No serial killers. No kraken. Not even a crazed bunny rabbit. There’s nothing there. We’re alone in the tunnel.
‘Hey!’ I say, relief making me sharp. ‘Come on, friend, talk to me! What’s going on?’
His mouth opens and closes. He won’t take his eyes off the far wall.
‘Don’t you see it? Don’t you see it?’ he gibbers.
‘What? What do you see?’
‘Sp-spider. Elephant size spi. Spider,’ the guy mutters.
Then he does the thing people do when they’re about to chunk their lunch - mouth open, chin pushing forward, little tremble in the throat. I subtly angle my body away from the potential splash zone and stare where he’s staring.
It’s not a big tunnel. I can see every corner of it with one sweep of my phone light, and there is not enough room in here for two teenagers and one elephant-sized anything. It would have to be practically on top of us, for a start -
‘Oh god,’ the screamer whispers. ’It’s giving birth.’
Have you ever seen someone faint? It’s not a fast, dramatic fall but a slow crumpling, as though their bones are now made of jelly but it’s taking a minute for the rest of them to realise.
He’s only saved from a concussion because he falls directly on top of me.